1,099 Quotes by Hermann Hesse

The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoever will be born must destroy a world.

One day I would be a better hand at the game. One day I would learn how to laugh. Pablo was waiting for me, and Mozart too.

The human attitude of which classical music is the expression is always the same; it is always based on the same kind of insight into life and strives for the same kind of victory over blind change. Classical music as gesture signifies knowledge of the tragedy of the human condition, affirmation of human destiny, courage, cheerful serenity.

Faith and doubt go hand in hand, they are complementaries. One who never doubts will never truly believe.

To such men the desperate and horrible thought has come that perhaps the whole of human life is but a bad joke, a violent and ill-fated abortion of the primal mother, a savage and dismal catastophe of nature.

Writing is good, thinking is better. Cleverness is good, patience is better.

All men of goodwill have this in common - that our works put us to shame.

God does not send us despair in order to kill us; he sends it in order to awaken us to new life.

I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me.